1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to: equipment incorporating thereinto a fuel cell for generating electricity upon receipt of supply of liquid fuel, in which an expendables unit having expendables is mounted to supply expendables, and the equipment is operative by electric power from the fuel cell involving consumption of the expendables from the expendables unit; a printer, as an example of such equipment, incorporating thereinto a fuel cell, in which an ink cartridge accommodating ink as expendables is mounted to supply the ink, and the printer is operative by electric power from the fuel cell upon receipt of supply of the ink from the ink cartridge; and an expendables unit mounted on the above-mentioned equipment for supplying expendables to the equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, there are developed various types of equipment which are operative as expendables loaded thereon are consumed, and such various types of equipment are used in various fields. Here, there will be explained an ink jet type of printer on behalf of those various types of equipment.
Recently, an ink jet type of printer using an ink cartridge rapidly comes into wide use in view of the fact that coloring technology advances and the use of the ink jet type of printer makes it possible to obtain a relatively clear color image with compactness and at low price.
Generally, an ink jet type of printer has a carriage supported by a guide bar on a slidable basis. In such ink jet type of printer, a plurality of ink cartridges storing a plurality of colors of ink is detachably mounted on the carriage, and ink stored in the ink cartridge is ejected from a recording head provided on the carriage by a film boiling force based on a driving signal, so that a color image is formed on a blank form (cf. Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Gazette Tokukai. No. 2001-301196 (Page 3, FIG. 7), for example).
However, since an ink cartridge merely stores ink on the order of several ml or so, when a large amount of images is recorded, it happens that the ink runs short and thus a printing is interrupted. In view of the foregoing, there is proposed a system for taking care of an amount of consumed inks in such a manner that a memory circuit is incorporated into the respective cartridge and an antenna is provided, and a control unit of the main frame of the printer is connected to the antenna on a radio basis (cf. Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Gazette Tokukai. No. 2002-127391 (Pages 2-3, FIG. 4), for example).
Further, in the event that required conditions for the image quality are varied between a business document and a photographic document in connection with contents to be printed, there is proposed a system capable of printing an image excellent in tone property without needs of the exchange into ink cartridges storing lower density of ink and the addition of the same in such a manner that a residue memory, a refill start memory and a refill over memory are provided on an ink cartridge, and a reducer is injected to dilute the ink into a desired density (cf. Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Gazette Tokukai. No. 2001-301196 (Pages 2-3, FIG. 1), for example).
Recently, there is developed a high energy density of secondary battery such as a nickel-cadmium battery and a lithium battery, there is advanced mobiling of electronic equipment such as a portable telephone, a video camera, a digital camera, a notebook-sized personal computer, and a electronic note, and there is developed a personal computer with a built-in printer by a battery driving. In order to prevent an interruption of printing due to exhaustion of a battery and also to prevent the loss of printing data due to exchange of batteries, there is proposed a personal computer with a built-in printer capable of deciding the propriety of printing through computing the necessary amount of electric power in accordance with a battery residue and an amount of printing data (cf. Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Gazette Tokukaihei. No. 10-105295 (Paragraphs 0001-0008), for example).
While the proposed personal computer with a built-in printer can prevent an interruption of printing and the loss of printing data, it involves such a troublesomeness that batteries are exchanged whenever a battery is exhausted, and it is difficult to continuously carry out a printing over a long time.
Nowadays, as an energy conversion system of high conversion efficiency, which is extremely less in air pollution, a fuel cell is noticed. As the fuel cell, there are raised: a solid oxide fuel cell of about 1000° C. in an operating temperature, wherein as an electrolyte, an oxide ion conductive solid-electrolyte is used; a phosphoric acid fuel cell of about 200° C. in an operating temperature, wherein as an electrolyte, a phosphoric acid water solution is used; a molten carbonate fuel cell of about 600° C. in an operating temperature, wherein as an electrolyte, a molten carbonate is used; a polymer electrolyte fuel cell of room temperature in an operating temperature, wherein as an electrolyte, a solid polymer is used. Of those sorts of fuel cell, as a fuel cell for mobile equipment, there is noticed the polymer electrolyte fuel cell of room temperature in an operating temperature. The polymer electrolyte fuel cell is of small and light, and is capable of obtaining high energy density Particularly, a direct methanol fuel cell, which needs no reforming to hydrogen, and is capable of generating electricity by means of directly supplying liquid methanol to electrodes, is excellent in the points that no reformer is needed and it is permitted that methanol, which is inexpensive and is easy in handling, is used as direct fuel. At the present time that utilization of the direct methanol fuel cell to portable electronic equipment is scrutinized, the direct methanol fuel cell involves technical problems to be solved, such as a development of film materials bringing about no so-called crossover phenomenon that methanol passes through a solid-electrolyte film without a reaction on a fuel electrode, or a development of means bringing about no crossover phenomenon, and a prevention from poisoning of catalyst (platinum) at the fuel electrode side due to carbon monoxide that is an intermediate product in the fuel electrode. It is believed, however, that those problems will be solved in near future.
As one of uses of the fuel cells, it is considered that a fuel cell is loaded onto a printer (cf. Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Gazette Tokukai. No. 2001-125646 (Paragraphs 0089), for example).
However, for example, in the event that equipment such as the above-mentioned ink jet printer is driven by a fuel cell, in case of the polymer electrolyte fuel cell, water is discharged from an air electrode. This involves a problem as to how the discharged water is processed. Further, in this case, there are also associated with problems as to where fuel to be supplied to the fuel electrode is stored, and as to how a residue of the stored fuel is detected to refuel.